Landung auf Madagaskar (Short 1944)

Landung auf Madagaskar: Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. With Paul Bonifas, Paul Clarus, Jean Dattas, Andre Frere. While preparing backstage, an actor tells his castmates about an adventure he had during World War II in the Axis-controlled French colony of Madagascar working for the Resistance and clashing with the collaborationist local police chief.

“u0026quot;Aventure Malgacheu0026quot; (u0026quot;Madagascan Adventureu0026quot;) was one of two short French-language propaganda films which Alfred Hitchcock directed for the British Ministry of Information during the Second World War, the other being u0026quot;Bon Voyageu0026quot;. u0026quot;Bon Voyageu0026quot; was intended to publicise the struggle of the French Resistance in mainland France itself, while u0026quot;Aventure Malgacheu0026quot; deals with the Resistance movement in the French colonies. After the fall of France in 1940 the administration in French Madagascar (like that in some other colonies) supported the collaborationist Vichy regime until the island was liberated by British and Free French forces in 1942. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe hero of the film is Paul Clarus, a lawyer and amateur actor, who is a leading light in the Resistance on Madagascar. (He is said to be based upon a real-life figure, Jules François Clermont, who portrays him in the films). His activities include helping anti-Vichy Frenchmen escape from the island to British-controlled territory and running a clandestine pro-Resistance radio station. These activities bring him into conflict with the villainous Jean Michel, who before the war was a criminal whom Clarus prosecuted in court, but who has now become the Vichy regimeu0026#39;s u0026quot;Chef de la Sûretéu0026quot; on the island. Some Vichy supporters were quite sincere in their belief that Marshal Philippe Petainu0026#39;s regime represented the best hope for the French nation but Michel is a cynical turncoat; when the British arrive we see him replacing a portrait of Petain in his office with one of Queen Victoria (which he has presumably been keeping in preparation for just such an eventuality).u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn u0026quot;Bon Voyageu0026quot; Hitchcock did make some use of his normal suspense techniques, but u0026quot;Aventure Malgacheu0026quot; is a more straightforward piece of propaganda. In the opening scene Clarus is seen discussing his adventures with some of his actor friends, so there is little suspense about the film; we know from the start that Clarus will survive. As with u0026quot;Bon Voyageu0026quot; the film is so different from Hitchcocku0026#39;s normal feature films, even explicitly propagandist ones like u0026quot;Foreign Correspondenceu0026quot; or u0026quot;Saboteuru0026quot;, that I will not award it a mark out of 10. It did, however, expand my French vocabulary by one word. u0026quot;Malgacheu0026quot; is French for u0026quot;Madagascanu0026quot;; on the basis that u0026quot;gacheru0026quot; is French for u0026quot;to spoilu0026quot; I would otherwise have translated the title as u0026quot;An Adventure Badly Spoiledu0026quot;.”